These precautions might seem paranoid -- Poitras describes them as "pretty extreme" -- but the people she has interviewed for her film were targets of the sort of surveillance and seizure that she fears. William Binney, a former top N.S.A. official who publicly accused the agency of illegal surveillance, was at home one morning in 2007 when F.B.I. agents burst in and aimed their weapons at his wife, his son and himself. Binney was, at the moment the agent entered his bathroom and pointed a gun at his head, naked in the shower. His computers, disks and personal records were confiscated and have not yet been returned. Binney has not been charged with any crime.

the article is spell-binding. read at own risk. (even tho NYT.)

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin